Jetlines’ first aircraft arrives in Canada as launch timeline slips

Canada Jetlines’ first aircraft has arrived in Canada, as the company’s timeline to launch revenue flights slips to mid-2022. The Vancouver-based company, which has gone through numerous top management changes since coming onto the scene in 2015, had planned to begin operations in the early part of the year, but chief executive Eddy Doyle now says that will not happen until “towards the end of Q2, certainly at the beginning of Q3”. “We are aiming to have our operating certificate from Transport Canada before the end of Q2,” Doyle says in a video posted to YouTube as the airline’s first aircraft, an 11-year-old Airbus A320, arrived in Canada on 26 February. Previously the carrier had said it expected its certificate in March. Doyle adds the Canadian market is ripe for a new leisure carrier as travellers return in greater numbers following the two-year coronavirus crisis. “We do sincerely believe there’s never been a better opportunity to start a new airline,” Doyle says in the video. “We are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel and we know it’s not a train coming anymore. When the market’s going to recover it will recover quickly... We have reached a point now for the travel and tourism industry to think about what they need to do to be ready for the huge demand that will be coming.” <br/>